Letter to VP Edwards sent 5/14/14

Letter to VP Edwards sent 5/14/14 dear Richard It is most disheartening to have heard not a word from you in three weeks after the date you said I could expect to hear—not even a note as to when I might hear from you. The only positive interpretation is that the extra time is being taken to transfer my line to SEBS and figure out a proper level of reduction in financial penalties against me-but since I have heard no word at all, including a line to that effect, this seems unlikely. Meanwhile having had six weeks of salary taken from me, i am about to suffer the second—and to me more outrageous-six week cost, because it results entirely from the arbitrary decision to lift me from teaching Anthro 204 which by University rules can only be done if I am found to be an immediate and serious threat—a position the University has never justified, in spite of repeated requests to have it do so. It is also worth noting that had i accepted at once Dr Blair's arbitrary, out of the blue "assignment" to teach a brand new course on something i knew very little about a mere three months before the class was due to begin, i would not have done the work described in the attached paper—one that will shortly be submitted to Science and is likely to achieve world-wide publicity. The one it was based on was cited 10 times in the press but this paper is on the best sprinters in the world. In October and November I raised the $60,000 necessary to do the research, December and early January I made the necessary arrangements in Jamaica and in January and February I assembled the team of three German scientists and two from the UK to do the measurements, while sheepherding the whole matter through IRB approval, so that we could do the work during two weeks in March—the last time the international sprinters would be on the island until next fall as the earliest. All of this should have been sacrificed to "save" the University $4500 of Dr Jacobson's salary, when Rutgers could have asked me to teach one of my own courses and earned back well more than that sum? It will be hard to convince others that darker motives are not at play here—as I have repeatedly suggested, the behavior is beyond stupid, it is spiteful. Otherwise, I do hope to hear from you and send you all good wishes from Berlin—the Institute, as you know, is wonderful and I receive nothing but EFTA01204059 warmth and support here bob EFTA01204060